Emerging Ghanaian womenswear label Sarah Christian has just released the editorial images for its first 2016 collection themed Monter en flèche.
“Monter en flèche dans la confiance belle femme!”
The collection combines African prints with Western influences in time honored ways, favoring peplums, micro lengths, contrast piping and sequinned pieces. Inspired by the idea of women soaring above their constraints, the collection’s big boon is the designer’s choice of fabrics and use of extensive beading to create three dimensional motifs.
By and large, the collection is somewhat formulaic and halfway through the designs, the design team begins to repeat styles, only changing minor elements like trouser lengths and print colours. There really is no logical reason for this other than the possibility of achieving a more robust look book.
A smaller, more carefully curated lookbook celebrating the label’s offering would have done much better than this replication. In fact, many international labels are scaling down, only offering their best work and avoiding the temptation to pad collections and lookbooks with extraneous and repetitive pieces.
Sarah Christian’s collection is a great beginning, what they need now is the confidence to trust that what they offer, however concise will be enough for their target audience.
